Funcrusher Plus

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[6]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[7]
Los Angeles Times	[8]
Muzik	10/10[9]
NME	7/10[10]
Pitchfork	9.0/10[11]
PopMatters	9/10[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[12]
Spectrum Culture	[13]
Spin	8/10[14]

AllMusic gave the album a perfect 5 star rating, and writer Steve Huey stated: "[Funcrusher Plus] demands intense concentration, but also rewards it, and its advancement of hip-hop as an art form is still being felt. It's difficult, challenging music, to be sure, and it's equally far ahead of its time."[6] Jon Dolan of City Pages noted "[Company Flow's] evincing a confrontational critique of 'those signed, big-budget muthafuckas' like none hip hop has attempted since EPMD's Strictly Business."[15]

Andrew Hultkrans of Spin gave the album 8 stars out of 10, commenting that "[the album] deconstructed hip-hop conventions and rebuilt them into a spare, murky, sputtering soundscape."[14] Jeff Weiss of Los Angeles Times felt that "El-P conjured an apocalyptic minimalism -- the sublimated sound of clanging and cluttered train cars, city grime buried beneath cuticles, and the ghostly smoke of burning blunts."[8]

Nate Patrin of Pitchfork said: "With the exception of the nocturnal crystalline funk of the Bigg Jus-produced 'Lune TNS' and the frequent scratch contributions from secret weapon DJ Mr. Len, Funcrusher Plus' beats bear the mark of El-P's dusty-but-digital aesthetic, which even back then had the same sort of beautiful-dystopia Blade Runner feel that informed Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein and his own Fantastic Damage a few years later."[11]

Brian Coleman of CMJ New Music Monthly called it "the most important release of 1997 thus far."[16] Joseph Schafer of Stereogum said, "Funcrusher Plus made for a hell of an opening salvo, and most emcee/producers would envy having such a record in their discography, but El mostly improved upon his work here later."[17]

On October 4, 2011, "Lune TNS" was chosen by NJ.com as the Song of the Day.[5]

In 2003, Funcrusher Plus ranked at number 84 on Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list.[18] In 2014, Complex listed the album at number 86 on the 90 Best Rap Albums of the 90s.[3] In 2015, it was chosen by Fact as number 4 on the 100 Best Indie Hip-Hop Records of All Time.[19]

Notes

• "Population Control" features uncredited vocals from R.A. the Rugged Man
• The vinyl version contains a track originally featured on the Funcrusher EP, titled "Corners '94".

• El-P – producer, lead vocals, mixing
• Bigg Jus – producer, lead vocals
• Mr. Len – producer, scratching
• R.A. the Rugged Man – vocals
• J-Treds – vocals
• BMS – vocals
• Breezly Brewin – vocals
• Vassos – recording, engineering, mixing
• Jeff Cordero – recording, engineering, mixing
• Walker Bernard – recording, engineering
• Chris Athens – mastering

• Funcrusher Plus at Discogs (list of releases)